CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump has not yet been sworn in, but his impending return brings hundreds of pending charges against his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. It has already been overturned, disrupting ongoing efforts to arrest more rioters.
The historic effort by Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents to investigate the deadly Capitol attack inspired by President Trump has resulted in more than 1,570 arrests in nearly all 50 states, making it the deadliest crime in American history. An investigation is underway. Four years later, new arrests are still trickling in, including the recent case against members of the Proud Boys and a rioter who tried to stab police with a flagpole.
But political realities have already undermined morale within the Justice Department divisions handling these cases, with defendants balking at negotiations, according to federal law enforcement officials involved in the massive investigation. This has hampered efforts to secure guilty pleas in about 300 pending cases. .
The official also said investigators have decided to use limited time and resources to track down the fugitive suspected of attacking police on January 6th, including breaking into the Capitol building. He said that meant lower-level rioters who were not involved in the violence were likely never to be prosecuted or held accountable. .
Much, if not all, of that work will likely be undone if Trump seizes power later this month and fulfills his campaign promise to grant presidential pardons to the Capitol rioters.
“Sometimes it feels like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” the source said.
The majority of federal criminal cases are resolved through plea deals, and the January 6 incident was no different. As of last month, about 1,250 of the 1,570 charges in the Capitol riot had already been sentenced, with 80% ending in guilty pleas.
About 300 cases remain active and unresolved, and Trump’s election victory effectively froze all ongoing plea deals, officials said.
“Which defense attorney will represent his client now?” the person said.
A lawyer representing many of the January 6 defendants told CNN that defense strategies have certainly changed. The rioters, excited by the election results and clamoring for pardons, are reluctant to cut any deals with prosecutors. Instead, they are seeking to delay the court process until after Trump’s inauguration. Some defendants have publicly criticized judges and prosecutors in court, invoking Trump’s clemency promise.
Instead of negotiating with prosecutors, many of the lawyers on Jan. 6 ended up figuring out how to get their clients on the pardon list if President Trump decides to grant pardons on a case-by-case basis. He said he was spending his time. he said he would do it.
After the election, the FBI distributed guidance in an internal memo indicating that while investigations would continue, it would focus on people suspected of committing felonies, especially those suspected of assaulting police officers, federal law enforcement officials said. told CNN.
This is consistent with the recent pace of investigations, primarily prioritizing serious cases. Early on, prosecutors filed hundreds of misdemeanor-only cases against people who broke into the Capitol but did not attack anyone or damage property.
As a result of this guidance, many trespassing cases will not be prosecuted.
“In a very real and practical way, investigators and prosecutors are asking whether it is an ethically sound and appropriate expenditure of resources to proceed with prosecutions when they are likely to be stopped by the president. We need to look at whether there is,” said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director who is now a senior law enforcement analyst for CNN.
Arrests are still rising slowly, with about a dozen new cases occurring since the election.
Prosecutors recently arrested a Texas man accused of breaking a Capitol window shutter, an Alabama man accused of trying to stab a police officer with a flagpole, a North Carolina woman who broke into the Senate gallery, and the right-wing Proud Boys. members were indicted. The New York group, according to court filings. All of them face felony charges.
It is difficult to fully grasp the scope of the January 6 federal investigation. Hundreds of federal law enforcement officials have been involved in an exhaustive four-year effort. The attack is so large that the FBI is still investigating it, based on information submitted in the days after the attack.
Investigators combed through thousands of hours of security and body camera footage in hopes of identifying individual rioters. They secured thousands of subpoenas and examined vast amounts of phone metadata, text messages, geolocation information, and social media posts. And each case prosecuted follows a boring court calendar.
The investigation is “a big part of the agency’s work,” McCabe said. Not surprisingly, President Trump is poised to undo much of this legacy through pardons, leading to low morale among some career officials working on these cases, federal officials told CNN. Ta.
“Investigators and prosecutors are never going to get rich or famous. It’s not about getting a 401(k) at the end of their careers,” McCabe said. “It’s about doing justice every day, and the reward for doing so is honoring the oath you swore, doing something positive for your country, mitigating a threat, and standing up for the fair application of the rule of law.” It’s a feeling of satisfaction.”
President Trump has said he intends to issue a pardon on the first day, but hasn’t said much about whether he wants to end the Jan. 6 investigation itself. Experts say this is a gross abuse of power, but within the president’s authority. However, if he goes down that path, he may have to wait until the Senate approves some of the Justice Department’s appointees.
“Morale has gone down, but it’s not going to stop and it’s not going to get any weaker,” a federal law enforcement official told CNN. “When you run a marathon, you always get cramps. It happens. But that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped running. If you push through it strong, you’ll finish strong.”
